Las desinencias de 2ª persona plural en español

The present chapter tackles the historical development of Spanish second person plural endings and focuses on sociostylistic and geographical factors to explain the coinage and diffusion of the innovative inflectional diphthongs. As a matter of fact, previous studies have paid no attention to the dialectal distribution of the variants at stake. The interplay between socio-stylistic factors and historical dialectal data provides some insights into the genesis, development and difussion of standard endings in European Spanish. Although unstressed and -stes endigns are put aside in this chapter, its outcomes can also be applied to account for the extension of the inflectional diphthongs to these forms. The present chapter concludes mainly that reduced and diphthong endings arise in north-eastern territories during the 14th century.